Just Another Mixed Black Kid from Hawaii

I know I already wrote about representation once this week but I cannot tell you how much you bask in the joy of other people's stories that are like yours when nothing really reflects you.

I heard about Barack Obama like many other people, through Oprah.

My mother, an avid watcher of her daytime TV show had seen his interview one afternoon. She told me right away, "have you heard about this guy Barack Obama? He's hapa too (in Hawaii anyone that's mixed is called hapa--not just white/asian multiracial folks) and grew up here! He went to Punahou!" Naturally I looked him up, watched some clips of him speaking and instantly went to find his book at Borders.

Note: If you are a younger reader the Oprah Winfrey Show & Boarders may be foreign to you--why am I old?

I remember reading his book on the plane ride back to USF from Hawaii and being happy to learn about another multiracial Black person's experience in Hawaii--a feeling I'd be lucky enough to experience again when reading Janet Mock's book years later. I read about how he navigated race and suddenly being included in Black community for the first time in college. I ate up the stuff about doing community work in Chicago and his need to give back. I thought of my own brother when he took a trip to Kenya to learn more of his familial history.

That's the thing about President Obama, every time I see him he feels like an old friend, a brother, an uncle. There have been times in his presidency that I felt disappointed and frustrated with him, often yelling at the screen, "what do you REALLY thing? what do you REALLY want to say?" The most recent of which was his speech after the election. As he told our nation to have faith and I was feeling so hopeless and broken I just KNEW he felt the same way.

I think I'll miss that most of all. The fact that President Obama and I share so much makes me feel like I know him and that he knows me. It made me feel like, even if I didn't agree with what he was doing, I trusted that he had us because we were family. It might sound irrational but I think many of us Black folks felt that way, we have our own relationship with OUR Obama, the one we've made up in our head. We didn't have that before and I don't know that we'll ever have it again in the same way.

I take comfort in the fact that he's not really leaving us, he'll always be referred to with respect as President and I hope that as the consequences of his uncensored honesty lessen we'll get to know how he really feels about things.